Beren and Luthien - Reading a Book About Writing

       I’m going to start this review by saying that I’m a huge Tolkien fan.  The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series are some of my favorite books.  I also loved The Lord of the Rings movies, but thought they ruined The Hobbit by trying to make a fairly short book into three three-hour long movies.  I had no idea that Beren and Luthien was being published until a member of my book club nominated it to be one of the books that we read.  While I greatly enjoyed the book, it’s probably best for people who are looking to learn more about Tolkien’s writing style and how his stories grew and changed instead of people who are looking to sit down and read a good story.  I say this for multiple reasons.

            1. The beginning of the book contains a rather lengthy (about 40 pages) section detailing the back story, talking about Tolkien’s habit of changing and revising his stories, and describing the difference between elves, men, dwarves, and gnomes.  The only thing the casual reader need take away from this section is that when Tolkien calls Beren a gnome he doesn’t mean gnome like the tiny guys with pointy hats who live in trees, but rather means a race of humans who are slightly wiser and longer lived than us normal humans are.
            2. This book basically tells the same story over and over again in different ways.  It starts with a very basic fable-like telling of the story and re-tells it in different formats with more detail.  Some details change, but the basic framework of the story remains the same.  This is great if you’re interested in seeing how a master of world-building adds detail and background to create fuller, more immersive stories but not so great if you’re looking to sit down and read a completed work in the finalized version you were meant to see.
            3. Two sections of this book are written as an epic poem, one of these sections is rather lengthy.  For readers who are more used to reading standard prose this may be a little jarring and difficult to read.  My helpful tip for reading epic poems is to break them down in small sections and ask yourself what’s going on in each section.  Typically, I use stanzas to separate sections but these pieces from Tolkien do not have standard stanza lengths and some are much longer than others.  Split them however you feel comfortable and tackle each section one at a time.  I find that jotting down some notes for each section is helpful.  When you’re finished you’ll be able to read it over in your own words. 

 I don’t want to discourage anyone from reading this book, as I said before I enjoyed it.  I just want to make sure that you aren’t disappointed if you do choose to read it.  I know some of the members of my book club were a little surprised to find that it wasn’t a novel.  If you want to read some of Tolkien’s work I’d suggest starting with The Hobbit.  It’s a short, enjoyable read and it’s a lot better than those awful movies they based on it.